~CITADEL REALTY ADVISORS~ New York,NY

About Us

JOEL ROSS
PRINCIPAL
CITADEL REALTY ADVISORS

Mr. Ross began his career in Wall St as an investment banker in 1965, where he handled public offerings, mergers & acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and other corporate advisory matters for a variety of clients. During the seventies he was CEO of North American operations for a UK based conglomerate where he acquired and oversaw six companies. He also sat on the parent company board. In 1981, he began his own firm handling leveraged buyouts and investment banking, as well as financing real estate syndications. In 1984, Mr. Ross began providing investment banking and advisory services and arranging financing for real estate transactions with his own firm, Ross Properties, Inc.

In 1993 Mr. Ross and a partner, Lexington Mortgage, created the first Wall St hotel CMBS program in conjunction with Nomura. They went on to develop a similar CMBS program for another major Wall St investment bank and for five leading hotel companies. Lexington, in partnership with Mr. Ross, established a hotel mortgage bank which was table funded by an investment bank, and making all CMBS hotel loans on their behalf. These were the first capital markets financing programs for hotels to be created since 1989, and it reopened Wall St to the hotel industry.

In 1999, he and two partners formed Citadel Realty Advisors as a successor to Ross Properties Corp. Citadel focuses on all types of real estate investment banking and advisory services. This includes raising equity, mezzanine capital and debt for individual properties as well as entities, and advising individuals on the formation of new entities for which he then raised the equity funding. In addition to the US, Citadel has arranged the financing for numerous office and industrial transactions in the UK and Paris. He has closed over $3.0 billion of financings for office, hotel, retail, land and multifamily projects. Advisory engagements include assisting clients to restructure or buy loans, or to find REO assets to acquire.

Mr. Ross was co-master developer for a 240 acre brownfield mixed use development in Sacramento, CA., and a 430 acre project in New Jersey, while continuing the investment banking practice in New York. He was also a founder of a brownfield land development company, and continues his involvement in that business. In addition, he has ownership interests in and a senior management role in credit card processing, wireless building control systems, and military armor companies.

Mr. Ross has served as an expert witness in ten court cases testifying on debt structures, interest rates, markets and development. He was an adjunct professor in the graduate program at the NYU Hotel School. In 1999, he conceived and co-authored with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Hotel Mortgage Performance Report, a major study of hotel mortgage default rates.

Mr. Ross is a graduate of the Wharton School and served two tours in Vietnam with the US Navy.